Fred Claire, the general manager of the World Series-winning Dodgers in 1988 and a longtime public relations executive with the team, died at his home in Pasadena on Monday night, his 91st birthday.
Claire’s time as Dodgers general manager was bookended by sudden upheaval. First in 1987, after Al Campanis was fired for his racist remarks about Black players and managers in baseball on the ABC show Nightline, Claire was plucked by owner Peter O’Malley to take over as GM after 18 seasons in the PR department.
Then in 1998, Claire was ousted along with manager Bill Russell once the team’s sale to Fox was finalized.
In between, the Dodgers made the playoffs three times in Claire’s 10 full seasons as general manager, including winning the World Series in 1988.
The Dodgers after winning the National League West in 1985 lost 89 games in consecutive years, and Claire was a busy man in his first offseason as general manager after the 1987 season. The Dodgers were in talks to trade Pedro Guerrero to the Detroit Tigers for Kirk Gibson, but there was also the pending decision in MLB’s collusion case that would eventually make Gibson a free agent later that winter. The Dodgers in December signed Gibson, who won National League MVP and authored one of the most famous home runs in baseball history, hitting a walk-off home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
The Dodgers in December also signed outfielder Mike Davis, who averaged 22 home runs in each of the previous three seasons in Oakland. Davis was very bad in his time with the Dodgers, but did draw a pinch-hit walk ahead of Gibson’s home run in the World Series, and also homered in the Game 5 clincher in Oakland.
At the winter meetings, Claire was in simultaneous talks with the Toronto Blue Jays (for shortstop Manuel Lee), New York Mets, and Oakland A’s. After an all-night session of talks, the Dodgers on December 11 made a three-team deal that sent pitchers Bob Welch and Matt Young to Oakland, and Jack Savage to New York, with shortstop Alfredo Griffin plus relievers Jay Howell and Jesse Orosco going to the Dodgers.
“I knew that we had to do several things to improve,” Fred Claire told True Blue LA in 2017. “We went into those meetings with three things that had to be accomplished. We had to have a shortstop to stabilize our infield. We needed a closer and we needed a left-handed relief pitcher. It’s one thing to target one player or one position, but we had three needs.”
As luck would have it, the Dodgers would play the 100-win Mets in the National League Championship Series and the 104-win A’s in the World Series that year. They beat them both.
“Fred brought many victories and Dodger legends to our franchise, as well as the 1988 World Series title, and we are forever grateful for his leadership during such a memorable era,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said Tuesday. “Our hearts go out to his wife Sheryl and his family.”
The Dodgers under Claire also made the playoffs in 1995 as NL West champions and in 1996 as a wild card team. In 1994, after contract talks to retain Jody Reed stalled, so Claire traded for another infielder, getting Delino DeShields from the Montreal Expos. Going the other way was undersized 22-year-old right-hander Pedro Martínez, who would later win three Cy Young Awards, make eight All-Star teams, and sail into the Hall of Fame.
“The facts have to be the facts, and those facts are, I traded Pedro,” Claire told Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times in 2017.
Claire was born in Ohio but moved with his family to California as a teenager and graduated from Torrance High School before earning a journalism degree from San Jose State in 1957.
He worked at the Whittier Daily News before moving to the Pomona Progress-Bulletin, where he was sports editor for seven of his nine and a half years at the newspaper. In 1968, Claire moved to the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram to cover the Angels, and moved to the Dodgers beat in 1969, before getting hired by the team in July 1969 in public relations, becoming a vice president in that department in 1975.
Claire in 2016 was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in his jaw, and underwent strenuous treatment. In the last decade has raised money for City Of Hope, including riding in the Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day in 2018.
When he was hired from the PR department as general manager in April 1987, Claire was aware of the criticisms coming his way for lack of experience, and speculation that his GM tenure might be a short-term affair.
“It’s now. I accept t on that, whether it’s one day or two days or three days,” Claire told Ken Gurnick of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. “I do know every day that’s there, I’ll devote what I can.”
Claire lasted in the general manager’s chair for over 11 years.
